Environment  |  Science  |  UW News blog

July 21, 2025

In the field: UW researchers bound for Alaska’s earthquake-impacted marshlands

The earthquake that rocked Alaska for close to five minutes on March 27, 1964, remains the most powerful earthquake recorded in U.S. history. It registered a magnitude of 9.2 on the Richter scale and generated a tsunami that killed people as far south as California. The earthquake also changed the nature of the land surrounding its epicenter near Prince William Sound.

Now, researchers from the University of Washington, led by Kendall Valentine, an assistant professor of oceanography at UW, the University of Rhode Island and the Desert Research Institute are traveling to Anchorage and the Copper River Delta to study marshes that formed in the years following the earthquake. Few geomorphologists have been to this region, and no one has compared the Alaskan marshes to those in more temperate regions. The ecological implications are significant for local wildlife and Alaskan communities.

Valentine has spearheaded similar interdisciplinary projects at the Willapa salt marsh in Washington with the goal of understanding how the ecosystem is adapting to climate change. In Alaska, she will co-lead a team of five early career researchers, and they will capture video and photos throughout their trip.

Valentine answered a few questions about her work for the occasional series “In the Field,” which highlights UW field efforts.

Tell us about the trip. Where are you going and why?

Kendall Valentine: We are heading to two primary areas – Anchorage and the Copper River Delta – to investigate salt marsh morphodynamics, which is another way of saying landscape-scale changes. We want to understand what happens along the coast after large seismic events.

The 1964 Alaska earthquake lifted the mudflats upward by several meters, creating a suitable environment for marsh vegetation where there wasn’t one before. Marshes rapidly formed, and rough estimates indicate that one to three meters of marsh sediments have accumulated in these areas since. Our understanding of how marshes form and function is based on slow-moving landscapes on passive margins, or places that don’t experience earthquakes. Studying these sites in Alaska will allow us to re-envision marsh dynamics.

The Copper River Delta is also one of the largest deltas in North America, but it is grossly understudied. Deltas form when fast moving water, such as a river, meets a slower body of water, like the sea. Fresh water, saltwater and mud all mix, which creates a dynamic environment and unique habitats. And, as the mud settles, it traps carbon.

What do you and your team hope to learn?

KV: High-latitude wetlands like these are experiencing rapid changes as sea levels rise, permafrost thaws and seasonal ice cover shifts. Erosion rates are increasing, which will influence the landscape and rates of carbon sequestration. These wetlands are critical for wildlife, coastline protection, trapping pollutants, managing nutrient distribution and storing carbon, but there is a real dearth of information about their geomorphology and ecology. We are pioneering the study of seasonally thawed, tectonically active marshes. Researchers have reported a “staggering lack of information” on shorelines at high latitudes, despite their abundance. These often-remote sites are hard to access, working conditions can be harsh and there are few cities nearby. We will be taking an airboat to remote locations to collect core samples and analyze carbon storage, sediment accumulation rates and more.

We hypothesize that carbon storage in high-latitude Alaskan marshes is driven by tectonic history, and we will explore the local carbon dynamics and note how plant populations have changed and marsh geography has evolved. Changes to the marsh could threaten infrastructure, coastal communities and cultural traditions and cost the state billions of dollars in maintenance and repairs.

Who else is going?

KV: I am going with Kendall Fontenot, a graduate student in my oceanography lab at UW; Erin Peck, an assistant professor in oceanography at the University of Rhode Island; Emily Hall, a graduate student in her lab Erin Peck’s lab; and Sophia Wensman, a postdoctoral researcher at the Desert Research Institute. My portion of this project is funded by the Quaternary Research Center here at UW.

We will also venture out into the field with some local partners. Ryan Choi, a vegetation and wetland ecologist in the Alaska Center for Conservation Science at the University of Alaska Anchorage  will join us, and his group has been very supportive. He will be exploring beaver impacts at the same sites.

We are also partnering with the U.S. Forest Service at the Chugach National Forest, who will provide field support (such as boats and bear protection) for the Copper River Delta work.

What do you enjoy about doing field work that might not occur to most people?

KV: What I love most about field work is connecting with the landscape. Marshes are very flat and wide. When you stand in one, particularly like the ones in Alaska – or other places I’ve worked, such as Louisiana – you start to understand how small people really are on this earth.

I love the squelch of the mud under my feet and the rotten egg smell it gives off. I actually wear scuba booties as my field shoes whenever it is safe so that I can feel the ground beneath me. There is so much you can sense about the marsh that is hard to capture in discrete samples and computer modeling.

Is there anything you find surprising or enlightening about doing field work, in general?

KV: Another part of field work that has changed the way I think about science is talking to the people who live on these landscapes. I’ve worked on the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts of the U.S. and each of these landscapes differ, as do the local issues and personalities. And yet, these communities share a certain kinship.

They face similar challenges and rely on their relationships with the land – from Cajuns in Louisiana to oyster growers in Willapa, to Indigenous peoples in Bristol Bay. Because their lives are truly tied to the land, the local people teach me things about the place that I could not glean from studying scientific papers or samples. Being in the field where I can listen to the stewards of the land gives me a greater appreciation for the data we collect, a reason to pursue the science and a deeper understanding of the processes that have shaped it.

For more information, contact Kendall Valentine at kvalent@uw.edu

Tag(s): College of the Environment • earthquakes • In the Field • Kendall Fontenot • Kendall Valentine • oceanography

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